


Stay

by elesssar



Series: Stay [1]
Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies), The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-04
Updated: 2014-08-04
Packaged: 2018-02-11 19:40:10
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 883
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2080662
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elesssar/pseuds/elesssar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Oneshot for Kiliel week; Prompt two: Presents / Gifts</p><p>Kili has been ordered to stay put, and so he makes the most out of his situation.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stay

Oin demands that Kili _rest_ , for Mahal’s sake, and Fili forces him to sit down under a tree and _just stay there_.

Kili, of course, endeavours to slip away and do something useful, but he’s waylaid by Tauriel. The elf, upon seeing him attempt to stand, fixes him with a beady eye.

“Do not, she says, “even _think_ about rising,”

Guiltily, Kili inches himself back down the tree, fighting to prevent a grimace from flashing across his face. Because it doesn’t hurt nearly as bad as it did, but his leg is still far from healed. He knows this, but he’s going to pretend that he doesn’t, because it doesn’t at all fit the tough dwarven image. And also he’s had more than enough of people flapping around him like he’s a child with a fever.

“Good,” Tauriel says upon seeing him settled, and comes and sits beside him. She is the swan to Kili’s sparrow – everything that he does will always seem ungainly compared to her grace.

They sit in silence for a few moments, watching the goings on around them. A group of young men and women from smouldering Lake-Town are coordinating to drag a series of logs across the ground, perhaps to enable them to be more centrally located for firewood. Kili really has no idea.

“How are you?” Tauriel asks quietly, and Kili doesn’t look at her.

“I’m fine,” he says, and he hears a sharp huff of breath that he would take for a snort if elves were to be the undignified.

“What?” He says, looking over at her now. The expression on her face is not what he wold expect, “It barely hurts anymore!”

A lie.

“It is not to that which I was referring,” Tauriel says, and it takes Kili a moment to register what she means.

“I... we’ll be there soon.”

“You’ll leave?” says Tauriel, and Kili doesn’t want to think about the implications of her words.

“We have to,” he says, and never has the truth felt more like a lie.

Tauriel rises, and for a moment she lingers, one hand held half towards him as if she were reaching for...well, for something.

“Stay,” she says, and then she is gone.

Kili does stay, sitting under the tree and watching the to-ing and fro-ing of the people. He wants to help, wants to do something useful...but Fili will flay him alive, and Tauriel...well.

Then, he has an idea. If he’s sitting on his arse, he may as well do something useful with his time. Pulling himself upright, he walks just a few steps towards a patch of long grass, where some early snowdrops are growing. Uprooting the whole bunch, he walks back up to his tree.

Dwarves may seem thick fingered and ungainly creatures, but they know how to make anything beautiful. Kili spends the next half hour carefully threading the stalks of the snowdrops through each other, and weaves in some supple branches that he has found as a support.

Fili comes past at one point, and stares at him with an eyebrow raised. Kili, who at first doesn’t notice, then tries to hide it behind his back.

“What,” says Fili, “are you doing?”

“Nothing,”

“Are you making a bouquet?”

“No!”

“Show me!”

“No!”

And although Kili has always been faster than Fili, his brother still has lighting fast reflexes, and has the wreath out from behind Kili’s back before he can react. Fili stares down at it for a moment, and then looks up at Kili with a knowing smile.

“You, my brother, are disgustingly smitten,”

“Do _not_ tell anyone...”

“By ‘anyone’, I assume you mean Thorin?”

But then Kili sees Tauriel approaching in the distance, and shoos his brother away. Fili strides off laughing.

“What does your brother find so amusing?” Tauriel asks as she reaches him, glancing over at Fili who is still chortling in the distance. She then notices Kili’s flushed face.

“...What?”

“I, uh...” Kili says, and then lifts the wreath towards her. She really is incredibly tall. “I made this for you.”

“I...oh,” Tauriel says, frozen. She looks down at Kili, and he watches as a series of expressions ranging from shock to happiness to something vaguely resembling sadness, “thank you, it’s lovely.”

She doesn’t take it though, and instead sits down next to him.

“Here,” she says, “you can put it on me, if you like.”

Kili gladly does so. It feels strangely intimate to be brushing her soft red hair back, arranging it just so, so that when he carefully places the crown over her brow, it fits perfectly.

“It suits you,” Kili says, “I knew it would, though.”

“Dwarves have an eye for such things?” Tauriel asks, and lifts one hand to gently stroke the stem of one of the snowdrops.

“That we do,” Kili says proudly.

Tauriel smiles at him, and to Kili her smile is as dazzling as the sun.

“Thank you, Kili – it is a lovely gift. Truly.”

Kili ducks his head a little, and then to his surprise he feels her lips on his cheek.

“Will _you_ stay with _me_?” Kili asks then, and it’s selfish, he knows, but he asks it anyway.

“Of course,” Tauriel says, pulling away, “of course I will stay with you.”


End file.
